In what must have seemed like a strange coincidence (or maybe it was deliberate), both of AMC’s dramas revolved heavily around train robberies last night. This type of heist hasn’t been popular since the days of Jesse James, so it was more than a little unique (and refreshing) that it was last night. First, the season premiere of Hell on Wheels and then a shorter grade for the Breaking Bad episode. [Spoilers, some vague, some not so vague]
Hell on Wheels Season Two Premiere…I wasn’t exactly a big fan of AMC’s first traditional Western (and the only one currently on TV, far as I know) last season. I thought the idea—–setting a show during the building of the first transnational railroad—–was a strong one that never quite came together. Mostly, because the characters weren’t nearly complex enough, the “tough guy” dialogue less than authentic, and the plots were stale, fenced in by that railroad, trapped by it almost. It turns out that a big part of what makes the Western genre tick is wide-open scenery (look at the Wyoming in “Longmire” as an example of that show’s best asset), but being stuck on that damn railroad cheated viewers out of the travel and freedom associated with the Western genre. In other words: it was awfully hard to raise “hell” when the characters were barely moving, stuck in squalid tents with more or less the same rivalries every week.
However, last night’s premiere was a definite step in the right direction. It begins with the show’s two central characters (a former confederate soldier whose entire family was killed by a renegade Union troop, a former slave trying to move up in the world but dealing with the complications of being “free” but not equal) on opposite sides of the railroad, as Bohannon has taken up with a gang that’s robbing trains, and Elam is now in a higher position of railroad muscle. A good start for them and a more promising start for others as the camp sites of the railroad are becoming for complex. [A hooker gets murdered and several wannabe criminals jockey for position to see who can provide the camp with protection.] Before you know it, this could turn out to be a show that lives up to its title, but it will probably never reach the heights of HBO’s masterpiece Western Deadwood (which has so much to say about not just Westerns, but also America as a whole, government, and capitalism) nor AMC’s other Sunday night thriller, Breaking Bad. Grade For Premiere Only: B [A stark improvement over the C- I would give most episodes last year.]
Breaking Bad Episode Review of “Dead Freight”…Just notice the stark contrast in the way the two shows pulled off their train robberies. While “Hell On Wheels” mostly went with a messy, visually murky robbery that made the action a little confusing and a little impersonal (I feel we’ve seen all that before), Breaking Bad held court with one of the most terrific and tense heist scenes I’ve seen on television. Ultra-realistic, weirdly funny, nerve-wracking with suspense, and then followed up by that gut punch ending that once again pulled the rug out from under us…wow. This show won’t let viewers off the suspension hook for even one episode ending.
An all around nerve-jangling episode that threatened to give the viewer multiple heart attacks (Walt’s stealthy and cold blooded bugging of his brother-in-law’s office, the near-death of Lydia, the ticking-bomb that is Walt’s basket case wife Skylar, and the planning of the heist) all before we even got to the title caper of trying to hijack a train. All of it felt wonderfully detailed and a pretty good approximation of how this would go in the real world (how do you rob a train and get away with it in the Homeland Security age?). Another great sequence to go along with the season premier’s magnets-led destroying of that police evidence room. And then the horrific ending to show you just how comfortable this series is with making you uncomfortable, going ever lower in the dread scale each episode (have every single one of the chilling episode endings this season not just made you simultaneously tense but riveted to find out where next season will go?). Much like its central anti-hero—–who may now be the show’s chief villain—–this show is at the top of its game, and I’ll be sorry to see its season end after only three more episodes. Grade for this episode and the season so far: A